Coming back soon, I hope

I suspect that anyone who followed this blog has long given up on it.  It's been a long dry spell with no posts.

I've been coping with cancer for the past several months, dealing with "chemo brain".  One of the side effects of chemo therapy is a fuzzy brain - inability to concentrate and focus on anything for very long.  Genealogy requires the kind of thinking and focus that has been beyond me for a while. Even reading is not easy.  I've temporarily given up on the complex mysteries that I love, and have been making do with what I call "fluffy" books.  Easy reads.  No real thinking.

But there's finally light at the end of the tunnel.  I'll be done with chemo at the end of February; and I'm hopeful that my mental faculties with return to normal before long.  There's still 6 weeks of radiation to get through, but the end is in sight.

On Saturday I attended an all day seminar by John Colleta.  He's a great speaker who has re-ignited the flame that was just an ember for so many months.

I'm hopeful that you'll hear from me again soon.

More cousins to look for.

I finally found the set of photos I’d asked my Mom to identify for me – and I finally really looked at them. While I knew there were distant cousins named Jankowski in Chicago, I hadn’t paid attention to another family of cousins named Polcyn.

On his arriving New York passenger list, my great grandfather Schipp indicated his destination to be Chicago. Probably to the Jankowski relatives there.  I don’t know how long he stayed in Chicago before settling in St. Paul, MN.

But who are the Polcyns??? 

Of course I went straight to census records to look for clues. That lasted one afternoon because I decided that it would be better to put this search off for a while.   I’ll get back to them when I get stuck again on my current searches. 

What's Next?

I’ve recovered from the worst cold I’ve had in ages.  It really took its toll for a few weeks; sapping all energy and motivation. So now I’m picking up where I left off on my research but I’m not sure where that is.

I’ve found my ancestral villages – at least the places where my great grandparents married and began their families. It was exciting finding their records on LDS microfilm.  But these were church sacramental records because civil records were not kept at that time.  With rare exception, they’re not indexed which means that you must know where to look and that can be a problem. So I feel that I’ve arrived at another brick wall. 

Do I try chipping away at the bricks trying to trace ancestors back into the early 1800’s? Looking for a needle in a haystack?  Just how far back can you trace Polish peseants?

Or do I take a break from that aspect, and focus on the family after they arrived in the US?

Or do I tackle another family line? 

Think I’ll take a few more days to plot my next move.,

Trendy Names

Trendy names have been with us for a long time. In recent times we’ve had thousands of Jennifers, Jasons, and Jeremys, among other cool names.  It was once fashionable to name boys after illustrious US presidents. In my husband’s ancestry are several George Washingtons and Thomas Jeffersons.

As I look for ancestors in Polish church records from the mid 19^th century, I wonder what was influencing the trends in names. Were the name fads local or were they inspired by people they read about?

Reading the LDS microfilms, I find a year when it seems that almost half of the girls born in one area are named Josepha and many of the boys are Joseph. The next year will be loaded with Catherine or boys named Martin.  Each year seems to produce a new favorite name for each gender

My Roman Catholic ancestors were all named after saints, so I don’t find the Polish equivalent of Dweezil or Moon Unit.  Too bad.  Might make them easier to find.

Fuzzy Memories Miss the Mark

Turns out my memory is fuzzier than I knew.  In my earlier post about Big Grandma’s House  I mentioned her coal burning cook stove.  A cousin who spent more time at Grandma’s than I ever did, corrected my mental picture.  As soon as I was reminded that it had porcelain knobs and a big shiny metal shield on the front, a better mental image clicked into place.  It was a gas stove!  But it did have a wood firebox on one side.

This certainly proves the value of having family members review what we write.

Big Grandma's House

Big Grandma, my mother’s mother, wasn’t really very big, not much more than 5 feet tall; but she was bigger than Little Grandma, my father’s mother, who was a tiny woman.

After we moved to the Chicago area, when we’d visit St. Paul, we’d stay with Big Grandma.  To a little girl who visited only once a year, her house was full of places I longed to explore but I wasn’t allowed to investigate - places that must surely contain all manner fascinating things.

The house was one of the earliest built in that part of St. Paul. Additions had been made by the time my grandparents bought it in 1920.  It still sits on Goodhue Street on the limestone bluff at the lower end of  the old High Bridge.  The basement had been carved or blasted out of the limestone.  There was a coal fired furnace down there; and probably storage for meat and vegetables.  I’m sure that the limestone kept the temperature more or less constant summer or winter.

Early photo – before my time

 The High Bridge connected the high bluffs of the wide gorge carved from the stone by the Mississippi river.  At the river’s level were still some homes, some industry, and a railroad yard.

The house itself was quite unremarkable.  It was green painted stucco. There were large shade trees in the front yard.  Around the side was a pretty plot of lily of the valley.  I loved those tiny fragrant white flowers. The back yard included a chicken coop that was empty by the time I saw it.  When her family was at home, Grandma raised chickens and ducks.  She used duck eggs in her baking because they were richer than chicken eggs.  Also in the backyard was Grandpa’s shed!

How I longed to investigate all the wonderful things stashed away in that shed! Grandpa died before I was born so I never knew him.  He’d been a teamster with his own team of horses; and the shed had housed the horses, his wagon, and all his tack and tools.  I was actually inside the shed a few times but never let loose to explore.  There were horse collars and other tack hanging on one wall. There was a grinding wheel for sharpening tools. I loved its smell of old wood and old leather.

The interior of the house was plain, functional, and felt very comfortable to me.  Nothing fancy, but I sure wish I had photos of its old fashioned furnishings.  There was a player piano with at least a dozen music rolls. I couldn’t play the rolls, but I was allowed to occasionally play the piano.  I learned decades later that one of my cousins resented me because Grandma let me sometimes play it. 

Hanging on the wall above the piano were portraits of two beautiful young women – 1920’s glamour portraits of two of my aunts.  I found that hard to believe because by the time I knew them, they were already in their 40’s which meant “old” in my young eyes.

There was a small room that had a toilet but it had no other plumbing. It also had a box of newspapers for bathroom reading.  Bathing was done in the kitchen in a big, round galvanized tub that was brought out for baths and for laundry.

The kitchen had a sink with a drainboard and single faucet for cold water.  Hot water for dishwashing, bathing and laundry was heated on the cook stove.  It was a huge black coal fired iron stove.  Grandma had cooked and baked for her family and taught her seven daughters to cook on that stove.  To the right of the stove there was a large pantry that excited my curiosity because the upper shelves held lots of interesting looking things. I never got to explore it. A room to the left of the stove held a large ice box among other things.

The long wide dining room held a sturdy table that would seat the whole family: parents and their 11 kids.  By the time I arrived, the only kids around were grandchildren and even some of them were already adults. On one wall was a big old clock with a brass pendulum and a pretty loud tick. It’s chime struck every quarter hour and tolled the hour. Off to one side was a nook with a small table and a chair.  On the table was a candlestick phone.

The rail yard at the base of the bluff was probably always pretty busy but I only noticed the trains at night.  I’d fall asleep to the ticking of the dining room clock and then, in the darkness, the whole house would begin to vibrate as a train pulled by a chugging steam engine would resonate through the limestone.  I can still feel it.

I remember being upstairs at Grandma’s house only once.  As usual, I wasn’t allowed to explore. There were chests full of things that Grandma had kept and that aunts and uncles had left behind.  Imagine what treasures were tucked away just waiting for a little girl to find them.

Our annual visits stopped in 1953 after my first brother was born; and when Grandma died in 1954, the house was emptied and sold.  To this day I still wonder what amazing things I might have found in the forbidden (to a little girl) spaces of Big Grandma’s house.

 

Wish I could remember

I’m feeling a little sad today because I have so few cohesive memories of my early childhood.  Much as I’d like to be able to construct a story from my early years, my mind seems to hold only snapshots.  I’m hoping that as I write things, I’ll begin to remember more.